


Exhale

by adexia



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Bad Future, F/M, Spoilers, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 16:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8631070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adexia/pseuds/adexia
Summary: Gangrel is having a bad time in the bad future. Things get worse!





	

**Author's Note:**

> someone requested gangrel suffering So I Did
> 
> Takes place in my FEA universe with Gangrel/Robin/Maribelle

Gangrel took a deep breath and stepped out into the dusty air. He’d sent Morgan and Brady with a caravan of refugees days ago; they were surely far enough away to be safe by now. They deserved far better a parent than this broken king who had failed to protect their mothers.

 

He shook his head at himself, marvelling at how he thought he could ever be a good husband or father. The Mad King of Plegia, brought low by a tempest in human form and then swept up in her stormy embrace, only to watch her develop into an all-encompassing hurricane. He just had to laugh at what a fool he was for thinking he could find and hold onto love! No, he was destined for disaster.

 

“My dear, if you could only see me now,” he rasped, tired eyes shifting skyward. “Though, perhaps you will soon, regardless.” Placing a scrap-metal crown atop his untamed hair and clasping a ragged cape about his shoulders, he strode out of the shadow of the ruined manor and into the streets of the ruined Ylissean city.

 

No one tried to stop him as he wound his way through the rubble; he had effortlessly slipped back into the aura of the Mad King he had once been, and the few people still within the city limits seemed to instinctively know better than to cross his path. That just made his journey all the easier as his thoughts grew increasingly frantic.

 

The city ended in a great chasm to the south, and that was where Gangrel came to a stop as well. He approached the edge, peering into the depths and seeing only fire and shadow. A fitting place for him to go, and full of delicious irony as well. He couldn’t help himself--he let out a high-pitched little giggle, remembering that exalted execution from so long ago.

 

“She thinks about you, sometimes.” The voice almost made him fall off the cliff prematurely, and caused his heart to skip several beats. “It’s funny.”

 

He clutched at his tattered shirt, staring down into the abyss. “Seems I’ve gone madder than before,” he whispered. He didn’t dare look up, afraid of who or what he might see. “Hearing voices. Hilarious.”

 

There was a chuckle that sent chills down his spine. It was all too similar to what her real laugh had been like. “Oh, Gangrel,” the voice said, dripping with false sympathy. “If not for you, I’m sure she would be quieter. Let’s see if we can do something about that.”

 

Already regretting it, Gangrel looked up and around. There stood Noella, fresh as a daisy, her blue coat as pristine as the day she had ceased to be herself. She smiled and tilted her head to the side, the beads in her braids clicking like a death rattle. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the beast wearing her skin said.

 

“Perhaps I have,” Gangrel said. He couldn’t stop himself from trembling as he stared down the hurricane. “A fine way for this madman to go out, don’t you think? Hearing and seeing things that shouldn’t be there.”

 

She laughed and held her left hand out, palm-up. A tome appeared in it, opening to a fresh page on its own. “You ought to hear what she’s saying to me,” she said, caressing the page with her right index finger. A breeze stirred up, blowing out his cape behind him. “You’d be all too familiar with it--so many begged you to spare their loved ones during your stint as king, didn’t they?” She smiled up at him. There were far too many teeth.

 

He tried to regain what little composure he had left in him, standing up straighter and smoothing his hair. “If you’ve something more to say, do make it quick.” He couldn’t mask the tremor in his words. “I have an appointment to keep.”

 

“Oh, but wouldn’t you prefer it this way?” she asked, hand resting on the open page of the tome, dead-eyed gaze fixed on his face. “I’m not usually one for last requests, but you’re just so special to her, I felt inclined to let her see you once more.”

 

Gangrel said nothing. Her smile widened. She brushed her hand down the tome’s page, smooth as silk. Wind whipped up around him, razor-sharp and faster than any gale. He closed his eyes and opened his arms, falling into the same storm that had felled him so many years ago.

 

“Exeunt,” he exhaled.


End file.
